Category Archives: MP3

It’s been nine years since the Patti Smith Group toured Australia, and even longer since I saw her, so to nab a very hot audience recording of Smith performing this past weekend in Melbourne is a treat indeed. Over at longtime Smith supporters the Big O zine, the Sunday evening show is now posted for free download, along with downloadable artwork.

It’s not only great sounding, it’s a raucous show as well; as Big O informs us, “The crowd sat for the first two songs, then during Birdland one enterprising young lady decided to make her way up to the front, which then led to a free for all abandoning of seats and everyone else rushing to the front and everyone in the stalls standing for the rest of the show.”

Added a reviewer at Australia’s The Age, “[Forty years after the release of Horses] and in the flesh, this holy figure spits, burps and whips her followers into a spiritual frenzy. Standing ovations were happening before the band played a note, and while the first couple of tracks built the mood – ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine’ – ‘Birdland’ saw people get out of their seats and march down to the front and out in the aisles, dancing, clapping and reaching out for Smith to touch their hands like she was, well, the Pope.”

Here at the Blurt pirate ship (we’re moored just off the shore of Ireland, incidentally) we have a hard time reaching a consensus about Father John Misty; Joshua Tillman’s music is intermittently brilliant, occasionally self indulgent, and moderately interesting (if a bit ’70s soft-rock derivative). On my part, I’m on the fence – and I detest his latest bathtub fart, Pure Comedy, which came out last week via Sub Pop. (Nice colored vinyl for the 2LP set, though.)

But fans will dig this show posted for free MP3 download at the Big O zine recently.

Love me some Wilco – the band is arguably the best American combo going right now. So here’s a good ‘un for all my fellow Wilco fanatics – the Chicago bros on home turf (the Chicago Theater, natch), serving up a heaping helping of recent album Wilco Schmilco alongside a ton of fun fan faves. The ever-diligent archivists at Big O zine have rounded up MP3 downloads of the FM broadcast Chicago punters were privy to, and there’s some sweet downloadable artwork as well. Link is below, followed by the full tracklising.

It’s no secret we’re big Chuck Prophet fans around the old BLURT saloon here – his new album Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins is one of his best recordings ever and yer ol’ Uncle has been on nonstop Spotify shuffle with it in the car since it was released last month. (Go HERE to read a review of his 2014 album Nightsurfer.) Prophet has hit the road behind it as well, and a couple of weeks ago he was in Vienna, where he positively smoked.

The good folks at the Big O zine have posted the set online as a free download, including downloadable artwork.

You can check out the full setlist, below. Note that there’s a hefty sampling of Prophet fan faves (say that phrase real fast 5 times) alongside most of the new album – and it’s an outstanding, audience-sourced recording as well.

By any standard it’s been a brutal week or so in the music world, losing first Leonard Cohen, then Leon Russell, Mose Allison, archivist/rocker Billy Miller of Norton Records and A-Bones fame, punk pioneer and journalist Don Waller, and now Sharon Jones of the mighty Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. As we music fans typically do, we work our way through our grief by revisiting the music. So here we go…

Over at the ever-diligent site Big O, they’ve posted a number of terrific Cohen concerts for free download, complete with artwork, including this FM broadcast from ’76, which joins several others previously posted:

Everyone knows that the Who’s Live at Leeds is one of the greatest ever live albums, but what some might not know is that originally, the band had soundman Bob Pridden recording the shows on its 1969 American tour in anticipation of culling a live album from the tapes. Pete Townshend, though, decided he didn’t like the results and had the tapes destroyed—or so he thought. A number of them did survive, and even though the official Leeds album was released, documenting a show the band did after getting back home to England, some of the mooted material wound up on such bootlegs as Accept No Substitute, Pure Rock Theatre, Live at Leeds Rejects, etc. (Pure Rock Theatre in particular was a terrific sounding boot, released in ’96 by the astute archivists at the Hiwatt label.)

So anway, the nicely-nicknamed “Prof. Stoned” has apparently been compiling and remastering as many of those surviving tapes as possible in order to create what he is called The Fall 1969 oundboard Tapes, a 5-volume collection (plus a 6th disc, a “highlights” anthology). It’s now available for free download over at the Big O zine, along with downloadable art and liner notes. Below is the tracklisting for the highlights release, along with the links to each of the five volumes. If you’re a fan of the ‘oo, this note’s for you, bubba.

It’s called “Talk to Me” and it’s streaming online right now (and also available to download for free here from Adult Swim): the newest material from El-P and Killer Mike, aka Run the Jewels. Check it out, below.

Everything from the first weekend with the exception of The Who and Roger Walters, both of which will soon be available.

By Uncle Blurt

Call it Oldchella if you prefer, but last weekend’s Desert Trip definitely got the troops motivated out of their walkers and wheelchairs – even body surfing, in fact, as the Rolling Stones, the Who, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul MCartney, Roger Waters, and the Rolling Stones all kicked out the jams. It starts up again tonight through Sunday, so for those of you unable to attend this weekend or the previous one, the good folks at Big O zine have kindly provided free MP3 downloads of several of the Oct. 7-9 performances. Included is downloadable artwork as well. Below, take a look at the setlists, and follow the links to the download pages.

Seems like all our rowdy friends hotfooted it over to Nashville last week for the annual Americanafest, leaving us to tend the Tarheel homefires all by our lonesome. What happened over there? Well, at least we got updates via Twitter and Facebook from some of those rowdy friends, or we would have no earthly idea, as the national music media, us included, appears to have been largely out of the loop. (Rumor has it that Jason Isbell was celebrated at the Americana Music Association awards ceremony, and that T Bone Burnett gave an impassioned keynote speech, so that’s a good sign.)

Luckily, though, a slew of great performances have surfaced online so us normal citizens can check out the tunes, which of course is the stuff that counts; YouTube was blowing up this weekend in particular. And the ever-diligent archivists at the Big O zine kindly posted MP3s of Dwight Yoakam’s live webcast.

Yes I did have a very nice vacation, thanks for asking. My only regret is that I was not in town to catch Wilco’s August 20 show in Minneapolis; I’ve attended at least 40 Wilco shows over the years and was hoping to crack that big four-oh. Next tour though. Meanwhile, as the show was broadcast over the radio, it’s now available as a free MP3 download over at Big O.

It’s a smokin’ show at that, full of fan faves along with a good chunk of latest album Star Wars (I have to remember to go out and grab a copy of that as I’ve only heard bits and pieces on Spotify thus far). And the recording is outstanding, so check it out, along with the tracklisting below. Meanwhile, go HERE to read a review of and see photos from the group’s Kansas City show, written by longtime contributor Danny Phillips.

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